Rebels in Aleppo agreed to unite under a military alliance to defend parts of the strategic city they control, against an assault by Bashar al-Assad's forces and their allies, but this new alliance named „Aleppo Army” has “no chance” to achieve its goal, experts say.

In the last days, rebels lost more than one-third of the territory they held in besieged eastern Aleppo; the most important urban stronghold for the opposition, to the government, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the UK-based war monitor.

Meanwhile, the rebels announced that the „Aleppo Army” would be led by Abu Abdelrahman Nour, the commander of the Jabha Shamiya rebel faction, which is one of the major groups fighting in northern Syria under the Free Syrian Army banner.

Rivalries among rebel groups have been seen for a long time as one of their major flaws, that pushed Syrian journalist Saleh Abd Allah to say that the new alliance would help in overcoming this problem and therefore confronting the government offensive assault.

Field sources in Aleppo told the „Aljazeera” website that the announcement of the new „army” would take the war to a new phase, and it would give the rebels a huge push in the fight against Assad's troops.

But experts in Middle Eastern issues said that there is not the slightest chance that „Aleppo Army” would achieve its goals.

„There is virtually no way that the latest rebel grouping can succeed” said Rodger Shanahan, a research fellow at Lowy Institute for International Policy, located in Sydney, before adding to Bild „The Syrian regime has made Aleppo the main effort and this is reflected in the weight of assets deployed there”.

Shanahan also said there is virtually no way that the forces inside East Aleppo will receive additional personnel or logistic support, so their fate has already been determined, it is just the timing and way in which Aleppo is reoccupied, that needs to be determined“. The research fellow insisted that the announcement of that „army” came too late.

Günter Meyer, Director of the Centre for Research on the Arab World in University of Mainz, told Bild „There is not the slightest chance that this Army will be able to prevent the troops of the Syrian regime and its allies from capturing the parts of Eastern Aleppo which are still under the control of the opposition”.

Joshua M. Landis, Director of the center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, agreed with the other two experts, and told Bild „I do not think This army can hang on. Syrian government has amassed over 50,000 troops in Aleppo. Fighters are less than 8,000, and they are cut off from resupply”. He summed up „It is a hopeless situation”.

The loss of east Aleppo would be the biggest blow to Syria's rebels in more than five years.

Recently, a senior official in the pro-Damascus military alliance, who declined to be identified in order to speak freely, told Reuters that Syria and its allies aim to drive rebels from Aleppo before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. President, repeating a previous timetable which pro-Damascus sources had said was drawn up to mitigate the risks of any shift in U.S. policy towards the war in Syria.

The United Nations announced in the past days that indiscriminate shelling of western Aleppo had continued killing and injuring civilians, destroying infrastructure, and had forced about 20,000 people from their homes.